It's Just A Picture (BL)
Chapter 50: That was a known fact

Chapter 50: That was a known fact

"I’ll walk you to the door." Seojun said and I stepped back for him to come out of the room.

He closed the door but I could still smell the cigarette.

It wasn’t harsh and it had a subtle lemon flavor to it.

’I can’t believe it.’ I thought to myself while following behind as we made our way to the front door. ’Does Seojun smoke?’

I couldn’t bring myself to ask him. It was just too weird.

"I hung out with a few older guys one time," he suddenly began speaking. "They had a very good sense of humor and talked like they had no worries in their lives. I had to entertain them because I needed their approval for the school project I was working on."

Why was he talking about this all of a sudden?

I wondered, but it didn’t hurt to listen to the story, so I decided to stay quiet and listen till the end.

"I thought they had it easy." He continued with a little scoff but I couldn’t see his face since he was right in front of me while we made our way to the door. "But they were far from having it easy." He stopped at the door but didn’t turn and instead, continued his story. "Into their second bottle of whiskey, they were already high and spewing out their worries. Their conditions were so awful that I wondered how they were going day by day without anyone noticing a thing."

Yeah, people were like that. They didn’t say their worries out loud and no one would ever know what they were going through unless they looked into their minds or heard it directly from their mouth.

"One of them lost their son the previous week, and another had only three months left to live. There was one who got divorced after his wife cheated but he still had to share half his property as alimony because he didn’t have physical evidence to convict her, and so on. The problems just kept piling up and..." He paused and rubbed his face. "I asked how they did it. How they didn’t throw themselves off a roof or rage about it day in and day out."

"What..." My lips moved on their own. "What did they say?"

"Smoking."

"What?"

Seojun finally turned to look at me. He had a sad smile on his face.

"They said they smoked and not like a street thug; they just did it once in a while when they felt the tension and gravity building up too much would crush them." He threw his face aside. "I asked why not alcohol, and they said they would end up being drunkards at that point, and when drunk, they would definitely make regrettable mistakes."

"So they smoke." I said and lowered my head.

I used to smoke so I could testify that smoking eased down tension a bit. Just enough to get your mind off. But then, if you smoked too much just because the tension wasn’t easing down enough, you would endanger your lungs.

That was a known fact.

"So, that’s why you started smoking." I said and raised my head to see that same sad smile on his lips. Why take the trouble to explain to this extent? He could’ve...

Ah, I see.

Just as I was worried the twins would be disappointed in me if they found out I used to smoke, he was scared that I would be disappointed in him as well.

But that wasn’t all of it. The reason he turned to smoking this very night, early morning to be precise since it was already past 1 am, was because he had something weighing heavily on his mind.

"I’m not disappointed, Seojun." I said. "I used to smoke too, and I’m not one to judge, so I respect your decision."

"Hyung?" He called, taking my hand. He looked glad that I didn’t evade him like I did last time and pressed my palm against his cheek. "If I did anything to upset you, please let me know." He said. "I don’t want to be the reason Hyung shakes in fear. I don’t want Hyung to look away from me either. I... I made a mistake so please forgive me and don’t look away from me." Tears slowly rolled down his cheeks, wetting my hand in the process. "Please don’t avoid me, Hyung. I don’t know what I’ll do if you do."

I was shocked and lost my words.

Did I hurt him? I was sure I was the one who got hurt by his indirect rejection. I was sure I was the one who misinterpreted his actions so why was he crying?

I bit my bottom lip. Why was he making me feel guilty? I didn’t even do anything.

"Seojun, stop crying. You’re not a baby." I said. "You didn’t do anything. I... I simply recalled a bad memory at that time, and that was why I acted that way. You had nothing to do with it."

That was a lie. But if I could get him to calm down with this lie then I would make up a dozen more of them.

"See, I’m right in front of you right now, aren’t I? If I hated you, no, if I didn’t want to see you or had intentions to avoid you, I wouldn’t have gone through that trouble of telling you that I would be leaving. I would’ve sneaked out the door, but I didn’t. So cheer up." I said. "I’m not going anywhere."

"Then does that mean you’ll stay the night?" He asked but my eyes narrowed in a straight line.

"Don’t push it, kid." I said and he laughed. Phew, that was better. "I’ll come back to check on you two before going to work, and I’ll call in sick for you too, so rest well, okay?"

"I got it, Hyung." He said and hugged me. "I thought I made a mistake. I’m glad I didn’t."

"Yeah, you didn’t." I said, my eyes slowly falling in sadness. ’I was the one who was mistaken.’

I was able to leave and get into my apartment with no more drama.

"Oof, this was a very eventful night." I exclaimed, diving into my bed. I hugged my pillow.

I just had only five hours to sleep so I wasted no time to close my eyes. Yet, my head wouldn’t stop replaying the entire night in my head.

I was very mistaken to have taken the twins’ words to heart. They just say things the way they seem on the surface. They definitely have no idea what it means to like another person.

"Then, does that mean they’ve never dated anyone before?" I wondered out loud. "Did they just go around kissing people they ’like’ in that sensual way?"

It was still heart wrenching to think about it. Their kisses were extremely sensual and pleasant. The pleasure that ran through my entire body was...

Ahem...

Well, that was a thought for another day. I had to go to work in the morning.